Rodney Dangerfield freely admits that a recent ENQUIRER report that he smoked a joint in a hospital's intensive care unit is completely true. But he says he has a perfectly reasonable explanation: "My wife won't let me get high at home!"

Two weeks ago we reported exclusively that Rodney's wife Joan rushed the 80-year-old comic to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica because he feared he was having a heart attack.

And he stunned hospital staffers by firing up a marijuana joint while changing his clothes in the ICU.

"Marijuana calms Rodney's nerves," said his spokesman Kevin Sasaki, who revealed that his office was flooded by calls -- all of them positive -- after The ENQUIRER story hit the stands.